The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is hitting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with a new salvo of gun control-focused TV ads ahead of this week’s Senate hearings on a so-called assault weapons ban.
The ban remains part of the post-Newtown, Conn., massacre discussion in Washington, albeit playing second (or third) fiddle to talk of universal background checks and magazine capacity bans, and the PCCC believes focusing on assault weapons is the right strategy.
The group is rolling out a $100,000 ad buy targeting McConnell on air in the Lexington, Louisville, Bowling Green, and Paducah broadcast markets in Kentucky and on cable in D.C. The TV ad features a Kentucky hunter claiming he doesn’t need an assault weapon for sport.
“I only shot my rifle one time this last season. One shot, one deer,” said Gary Nutt, a military veteran from Cub Run, Ky., in the ad. “But I’d be a pretty bad hunter if I needed an assault rifle to shoot that buck. I support the plan to ban assault weapons and keep ‘em out of the wrong hands.”
The ad starring Nutt is the PCCC’s second spot targeting McConnell over gun control. The PCCC pointed to polling the group sponsored that showed more Kentuckians support an assault weapons ban than oppose it.
Despite the hearings and the PCCC ads, the chances for a new assault weapons ban this year are slim at best. Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the sponsor of the ban in the Senate, has said the proposal faces an “uphill climb” on Capitol Hill. Gun control advocates and their allies have instead focused their attention on background checks.
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